Crooked, dirty teeth - the tangible symbol of British freedom - were under a direct terrorist threat today.

LONDON, UK -- The world was shocked today as British officials revealed they had thwarted
a terrorist plot to smuggle toothpaste and other oral hygiene supplies into the United Kingdom. The terror alert level in Britain was immediately raised to "Bright White", and
all flights into Heathrow airport were diverted away.

Leaked details from investigators provided a terrifying account of the terrorists' plans.
Up to 10 airplanes were to be used - enough to smuggle supplies for cleaning the teeth
of thousands upon thousands of Britons. "It would have been the greatest tragedy of our times," admitted a choked up Inspector Flemming of the BDA. Much like the former Yugoslavia
had its "ethnic cleansing", the UK would have suffered a "dental cleansing", he explained.

Security at airports was immediately tightened after the announcement. As a precaution,
all paste containers were banned from carry on luggage, as they could possibly conceal
toothpaste. This included shoe paste, paste glue, and all edible pastes. Breath sniffing
dogs were deployed to help detect any tooth-cleansing chemicals, such as hydrogen peroxide
and fluoride. Even other personal hygiene items - such as deodorant - were forbidden.

At an impromptu conference, Prime Minister Tony Blair described in grim detail
how fluoride interacts with tooth enamel at a chemical level to whiten in. Many in the
audience gasped. At the end of his remarks, Blair vowed to keep the country safe from
future attacks, and echoed Franklin D. Roosevelt by saying "We have nothing to fear but the dentists themselves."

The identities of the alleged terrorists have not yet been revealed, and rumors abound
that authorities are still searching for more. All the clues, however, point to these
people as being members of Al-Qaida's Tooth Brigade, the global dental terrorist network.

Oral bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind this plot, shrugged away its failure, saying, "We always have a plan B. The plan most dentists use worldwide. 10,000 Oral B electro-tacho-magneto-thermodynamic toothbrushes (now with Bristles!) are on a ferry to Dover as we speak!" The Wales Backyard had no comment on this.

In other news, the entire population of the United Kingdom is fed up with the clichéd and oft-repeated-for-comedic-purposes misconception that it suffers from a lack of dental hygeine. In a statement passed to the American embassy in London, HM Government states that "The average Briton has more intelligence in his partially reconstructed front-centre molar than the population of Texas combined, so there."